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Talk of the Australian Net filter proposed by the Federal Government, in particular Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has been rife lately, and for good reason, people are pissed off. Why are they pissed off you might ask? A 'Clean Feed' filter will keep away kiddy porn and illegal information, and hard core pornography, and unwanted content (?!), and, and... where does it stop, who is in charge, what the hell is unwanted content....To further add fuel to this fire, it is going to slow down the already molasses like internet speed in Australia. This is government (and lobby groups) gone mad, we are not all paedophiles and terrorists, we are adults, who can make choices, and provide comprehensive supervision and care for our children. Read on as I attempt to discuss the issues with this proposal.
I am sure I don't need to tell you educated readers that blanket filtering of anything is a bad thing, it just doesn't work. First issue is the waste of tax payers money on infrastructure to provide the filter, the second issue is the fact that it doesn't do what it's supposed to, filtering things it shouldn't, as well as letting some through that it should. That is the nature of the beast of an internet which is broad, vast, and built on the institution of freedom of expression, and personal expression and space. Another issue with an ISP level filter is one of personal information privacy and security. No longer will your transactions on online banking be between you and your financial institution, but will be you -> government proxy/filter -> bank. Do you see the issue here? Every email, transaction, action on the internet can be monitored. This is the fabled Big Brother. Would you feel comfortable expressing your political opinion in an email anymore, would you be confident enough to share an email joke with friends which may include unwanted content such as disagreeing with the government of the days policies. It all sounds a little red to me, that is, if the Australian Federal Government go ahead with this plan, we will be on par with such illustrious 'human rights' and 'freedom of speech' crusading countries as China and Saudi Arabia. (Sarcasm intended) Communications Minister Stephen Conroy seems to have a standard defense for the above assertions which is that if you are not agreeable to the idea of the filter then you have something to hide. My assertion would be is that as responsible adults in a society which encourages freedom of expression and mutual respect for one another as human beings through the ideals of such things as multiculturalism and diversity, is that we are able to decide what we will and will not view in our homes (I am most certainly not suggesting that ANYONE supports child pornography or illegal activity, we all know the laws stance and penalties for these things) and allow our children to see is up to our discretion as adults. I would much rather see the tax payers money being put towards law enforcement, which has the authority and mandate to remove criminals and illegal content from our society. Increasing our Police Forces and cyber crime investigation units will yield tangible results, rather than a solution which makes us prisoners of lobby groups and 'squeaky wheel' elements of society. The filter in it's current form will actually hinder the Police' ability to 'track' sexual offenders. In previous stings, the police have been able to utilise 'footprints' left by predators on the internet. If the traditional methods of peddling their wares is removed they will migrate to peer-to-peer (P2P) and encrypted methods of transmission which are currently untrackable, and unblockable by the proposed filter. Which brings me to another relevant point, which is that most criminals will already be utilising P2P and encrypted methods of transmission to traffic illegal content, meaning that this element will be unchanged by the implementation of the new filter. This point in particular has been stressed by iinet, an Australian ISP who has suggested to the government that it will be so simple to get around the filter, by using P2P, encrypted lines, VPN access, or commonly available No-IP or Free-IP Services, which make your computer 'tunnel' through an American, or Asian IP so that you can view the internet unfettered. These technologies already exist, and will be utilised to circumvent the governments 'fool-proof' net filter. So, you say, you have been ranting for 10 minutes but haven't offered a single alternative, well, you're in luck, I have some not-so-earth-shattering (read: common sense) ideas for you! 1 - If you want your children to have a safer internet surfing experience, there are already filtering softwares out there, NetNanny et al, heck the Federal Government even provides one free of charge (already I hear you say - Deja Vu?) it is available, along with some more safe-surfing advice here. 2 - Have a look at this great piece by SAGE-AU (System Administrators Guild of Australia) Which talks about a 3-pronged approach to net safety which closely aligns with my own thoughts on the situation; Encouraging family friendly ISP services, improved parent education, and an increase in the rigor of law enforcement. Link is Here. You will be interested to see that this piece even outlines the fact that some ISP's can already offer a 'clean feed' service to families! In closing, I guess my biggest bug bears with this proposal are: It makes Australian adults out to be idiots compared to most of the rest of the world, who can already make their own minds up It will slow down our already slow, capped (Australia is one of few countries with download limits, as we have a very narrow telco market) and expensive internet. Lobby groups such as Family First seem to have the ministers ear, and all common sense and rigorous research into the practicability of the proposal seems to have been thrown out, replaced with the line that all those opposed are evil and support illegal content and activity. Pivacy and freedom of expression restrictions and monitoring issues. A solution for those who are unable to supervise their childrens' use of the internet already exists in the form of free and commercial filtering software and ISP based clean feeds. The money being spent on this project could have been much better spent on building much needed hospitals, education facilities, more teachers, law enforcement....insert your ideas here. For more, see the excellent Wiki article at Overclockers Australia (OCAU) here.
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